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Perfidy parade

March 07, 2007

Witness the gall of the New York State United Teachers. After watching Governor Eliot Spitzer shower an extra $1.4 billion upon the state's public schools in his budget, the union showed its thanks by waging a campaign of disinformation aimed at Spitzer's proposal to raise the Empire State's charter school cap from 100 to 250. Among the union's erroneous claims, which it plastered on billboards and broadcast in radio ads, is that charter schools are "unregulated." When a New York Daily News columnist pressed union President Richard Iannuzzi on that claim, he waffled: "They're not unregulated, no," he admitted. "‘Unregulated' would not be the word." Unfortunately, it was his word; he said it. Spitzer's office reportedly thought that by boosting state aid to schools over the next four years, it could buy some goodwill from the unions on charter school reform. Doesn't look that way. No doubt this steamroller governor will think twice before making such deals in the future... we hope.